


Promises

by quandong_crumble



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Barebacking, Bottom Tony Stark, Established Relationship, Intimacy, M/M, Secret Relationship, thank god you're alive sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 14:13:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2071371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quandong_crumble/pseuds/quandong_crumble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“You promised, you asshole,” Jim tells him, his voice nearly cracking on the words. “You promised you weren’t going to anything dangerous while I was gone.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“I think alien invasion and the formation of the Avengers kind of forced my hand here, honey bear,” Tony says. He takes a breath like he’s going to say more but Jim leans into him, turning his grasp into a hug, and kisses him quiet.</em>
</p>
<p>After the battle against the chitauri, Jim Rhodes lands out the front of the shawarma place and goes inside to find his boyfriend sitting at the table with a living legend, an alien god, two superspies and a mild mannered scientist with breathtaking anger issues. This isn't the fic of what happens next. This is the fic of what happens after all of that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [not_applicable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_applicable/gifts).



> This takes place in a canon-divergent world where Rhodey and Tony have been secretly together, on and off, for most of their adult lives, with their current relationship beginning between Iron Man 2 and Avengers.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who cheered for me to get this done despite my procrastination, lack of muse, and general pathetic apathy lately. You're all awesome.

Jim can hardly wait for the armour to fall away. Each moment still encased in metal feels like an eternity, even though it only takes seconds before he’s down to the modified flight suit he wears underneath. In front of him, Tony sags as the last bit of the chest plate is pulled free. Jim’s on him in a heartbeat, gripping him by the shoulders to steady him. They’re both beyond tired, weary in a way that’s settled in Jim’s bones, but he knows he won’t get any rest until he’s checked Tony thoroughly to make sure he’s okay. 

“I can’t believe you flew that nuke through the portal,” Jim whispers. 

Tony laughs, a breath of a sound. “There wasn’t much choice.”

“You promised, you asshole,” Jim tells him, his voice nearly cracking on the words. “You promised you weren’t going to anything dangerous while I was gone.”

“I think alien invasion and the formation of the Avengers kind of forced my hand here, honey bear,” Tony says. He takes a breath like he’s going to say more but Jim leans into him, turning his grasp into a hug, and kisses him quiet. 

“I know, I know,” he says between kisses, hard and desperate. “It’s just– I had the news feed on the suit and I had to watch as you flew up there and I was still an hour out. I had to listen to you say good bye to me, and I couldn’t do _anything_.”

He takes a deep, shuddering breath and presses his forehead to Tony’s, his hands cradling the other man’s face. Tony’s arms tighten around him, holding them so they’re pressed together in an almost unbroken line from head to shins. “Promise me you won’t do that again. Promise me you won’t go where I can’t follow.”

Tony’s grip loosens a little, but he doesn’t pull away. “You know I can’t promise that. You told me the same thing years ago. This superhero thing, I don’t know where it’s going, I don’t know if we’ll ever be needed like this again. There could be another alien invasion next week, for all we know. But I’ll tell you what you told me back then. I promise I’ll do my best to come back.”

It will have to do, Jim thinks. It’s hard, he’s so used to being the one to walk face first into danger, the one leaving Tony behind to wait. Their lives were flipped topsy-turvy years ago in Afghanistan, and he’s still struggling to keep up with the changes. He’s still reeling from a call he got while flying hell for leather towards New York. _‘I’m sorry, platypus. I’m going to do something stupid. And I just wanted to tell you I love you. I love you, Jim Rhodes. I–’_  and then the signal had been lost before he could reply, before he could tell Tony that he loves him too, not that he hasn’t said it a hundred times before, and he’d had to watch the grainy news footage of the portal closing and his closest, dearest friend, his lover, fall like a stone toward the ground.

The next minute felt like the longest of his life, until he’d heard Tony’s voice in his ear. _‘Its over. We won. I’m okay.’_ The War Machine had shuddered and strained like a thing possessed as he coaxed every last bit of speed out of it, draining the reactor dangerously, as though he could cross the hour between him and New York by willpower alone. 

When he’d touched down in front of the shawarma place it had only been years of habit, of keeping their relationship a secret outside of the close circle that know, that had stopped him from grabbing Tony and kissing him senseless. Instead he’d had to sit next to him at the table surrounded by a bunch of filthy, exhausted superheroes—including _Captain America_ , who’d managed a short, sleepy conversation—and pretend that he didn’t want to tear Tony’s armour off and check him all over for injuries. And he’d managed, managed to smile, to introduce himself and to listen to Tony and the others fill him in on details of the battle. He’d barely believed it, and who could blame him, really? The idea that an alien god just showed up to take over the world is a little far fetched, even for a guy who spends his time flying around in a suit of armour. But they finally all went their separate ways and now, now that he has Tony in his arms, all he can do is cling. 

Tony buries his nose in Jim’s neck, leaning against him, and let’s out a full-body sigh. “We should, I don’t know, shower and then sleep for a week.”

Jim lets himself be led through Tony’s destroyed penthouse, avoiding the scattered broken glass and the enormous hole in the floor. JARVIS says something, his voice distorted by a broken speaker, and Tony replies, but Jim doesn’t even try to follow the conversation. His thoughts are still jumping around his head, bouncing between the fear he felt at seeing Tony fall and how bizarre it had felt to sit in that tiny restaurant surrounded by his lover, two assassins, a mighty morphing gamma scientist, a caped alien god, and Captain _freaking_  America like he was one of the team. So he just follows Tony through to the elevator, and then down to one of the floors Tony installed for corporate guest apartments.

It looks too much like a hotel room, is his first ridiculous thought, and then Tony’s stopping in the middle of the white-tiled bathroom and kicking off his shoes, followed by his jeans. Jim stares for a moment at the shape of his bare legs, the red marks where the folds of denim were pressed against his skin by the Iron Man armour, and the swellings where bruises will bloom later. Then he gets with the program and unsnaps the neck of his suit, peeling it down to his waist. He can feel his own bruises making themselves known, a broad one on his shoulder where he was rattled badly by the tank that hit him, and a matching one on his hip. His joints ache from being in the suit so long, locked in flight position.

“Are you showering with me?” Tony asks. He gestures at the fairly expansive stall, still a lot smaller than the one in Tony’s own bathroom upstairs. “There’s just about enough room, or J can unlock the room next door if you don’t want to share.”

“I’ll share,” Jim says. “You can make sure I don’t fall asleep and drown.”

Tony strips out of his shirts, revealing blooming bruises similar to Jim’s, and Jim can already imagine the long hours Tony will be putting in to try and reduce how much they get slammed around inside the armour. Jim unlaces his boots and toes them off, and finishes stripping out of the flight suit. By the time his underwear joins the pile of clothes, Tony has the shower running and is standing under the water. Jim shuts the bathroom door before too much steam can escape, and joins him. 

Unlike Tony’s bathroom upstairs, there’s only one showerhead, so they have to take it in turns standing under the water. Jim scrubs the bar of soap across Tony’s back and massages shampoo into his hair, and Tony returns the favour. It’s an intimate dance, taking quiet, gentle comfort through touch. Jim finds himself slowly waking up, despite the warmth of the water, like he’s finally found his second—or third or fourth—wind.

When Tony turns to face him again Jim spots bruising he’d managed to overlook before, marks on Tony’s throat like someone had grabbed him and squeezes. Jim touches them, fingers gentle around the edges of the marks.

“How did this happen?”

“Loki,” Tony says. He touches the spot on the edge of his jaw that’s already darkening toward purple. “He threw me out the window while I was threatening him.”

Jim tries to remember any damage to the neck of the Iron Man, but can’t picture it in detail. “How’d he do this through the suit?”

“I wasn’t in it,” Tony says. “The mk six was damaged during the attack on the helicarrier, and I needed to give JARVIS time to deploy the mk seven and the rest of the team time to arrive. I thought coming in unarmed and in unarmoured would throw off him long enough for that. It nearly did, but he didn’t like something I said and decided to toss me out the window. J caught me in time.”

Jim stares at him and tries to will away the mental image of Tony falling from the top of the tower. Because despite everything, despite a mad god and an alien invasion and a shadowy organisation trying to nuke Manhattan, Tony’s standing here whole and alive and very naked in his arms. He can cling to that. 

“You’re an idiot,” Jim says, and kisses him. “You faced up against a mad god in civvies.”

“The mk six was barely flying,” Tony tells him. “What was I supposed to do? Hide somewhere and hope nothing happened in the meantime? Tell me you wouldn’t have done it differently.”

Jim thinks of the battle he just came from, one man against a veritable army of tanks and rockets, and admits that Tony’s right. He probably would have done the same if it meant getting the upper hand and giving a team time to get into position. “Well, no, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a really dumb idea.”

“Heroic. Really heroic idea, and one that I’m not anxious to repeat,” Tony says. He doesn’t say much more, though, lazily kissing Jim back until their gentle, chaste kisses become hotter and more desperate.

Jim can feel his tired body growing interested, his dick growing full and hard. He can feel evidence of Tony’s arousal pressing into his thigh, too, as he pulls him closer and sucks on Tony’s tongue. Tony’s got one arm wrapped tight around his waist, the other hand stroking up and down his back, and their bodies slide together wetly. 

The friction is good, but not quite enough, and Jim shifts his stance so that their cocks bump together and slides his hand in between their bodies to gather them in a loose grip. Water isn’t the best lubricant, so Jim keeps his grip gentle and pumps their cocks together until he can feel Tony start to thrust into his hand. They’re both rock hard when he swipes his thumb over the head of both cocks and Tony’s hips buck, and he breaks the kiss and pulls away.

“I never thought I’d say this, but I think I’m getting too old for shower sex,” he says when Jim gives him a quizzical look. “There’s a perfectly good bed out there and there might even be lube in the bathroom cupboard if we’re lucky. What do you think?”

“You stock lube in your guest bathrooms?” Jim asks. He does let got of Tony, though, and reach past him to turn off the shower. He steps out of the shower and grabs one of the ridiculously white fluffy towels, and stands aside to let Tony past.

“I don’t know, there’s pretty much everything in here. First aid kit, feminine products, the works. Why wouldn’t there be lube?” Tony rubs absently at his chest with the other towel, and bends to check the vanity cupboard for supplies. Naked, wet, and bent over like that he looks especially alluring, and Jim can’t help but run an appreciative hand over Tony’s ass. Tony stops rummaging for a moment to lean back into the touch. “Distractions aren’t helping me search, honey bear. Do you want this fine ass or not? Aha! It’s water based but it will do.”

They’re not wet, not quite, when they tumble to the bed, but Tony’s skin is still a little clammy under Jim’s fingers. He slides one leg in between Tony’s and pins him to the bed, bending to give him a kiss. Tony arches up into it, his hands wrapping around Jim’s back and fingertips pressing into his shoulders. Jim swipes his tongue against Tony’s bottom lip, and then licks into his mouth when he opens to him. Jim tries to be careful, to remember that they’re both a little sore, but there’s still that little niggling thought in his mind. He almost lost Tony today, and he needs more than the gentle, careful touches from the shower to reassure that part of his brain that Tony is alive and whole.

Tony must need the same, either reminding himself that Jim’s okay or just celebrating being alive, because he nips at Jim’s tongue and digs his fingers in to his back, pulling him closer. He bucks up against Jim’s thigh, cock a hard, hot line pressing against the muscle there. Jim grinds down against Tony’s hip and pulls back to bite at Tony’s bottom lip, making him gasp. He kisses his way down Tony’s throat to his chest, adding teeth to the mix when he reaches the less sensitive network of scars around the arc reactor, and then across to lave attention to Tony’s nipple. His hand finds Tony’s weeping cock, slick with precome, and pumps it slowly, and dips down further, skimming over his balls almost light enough to tickle, then pressing hard against his perineum. He lets his middle finger slide further, pressing against Tony’s hole, and feels the muscle give a little at the intrusion.

“Fuck,” Tony gasps, and then, “yes. Please.” His hips jerk up and his hands clutch at Jim’s shoulders.

_‘Please.’_  It’s something Tony only ever says during sex—or when he’s well and truly fucked up beyond a simple _‘sorry’_  and actually cares to make it right, and Jim can count the number of those pleas he’s heard on both hands with fingers to spare. Jim sits up and finds the little bottle of Astroglide on the nightstand, just where Tony left it. He settles himself between Tony’s legs and warms the lube between his fingers before he presses one into Tony’s ass. Tony’s hips jerk and he clenches down around Jim’s finger for a moment before he relaxes and lets him push in more lube. Jim crooks his finger enough to press against Tony’s prostate and he watches while he squirms, trying to get more pressure.

“Please,” Tony whines.

Jim can’t resist when he’s like this, pupils blown wide with lust and stimulation, squirming on the covers while Jim plays his body like an instrument. He can’t resist him and he doesn’t want to. Jim eases his fingers free and coats his cock with more lube, then presses the broad head against Tony’s hole. There’s a moment of resistance, just a tiny one, and then Jim’s cock slides in. Tony feels amazing, warm and slick and so, so perfect, and Jim just rests a moment, buried to the hilt. Tony’s legs hook around his waist and his arms come up around Jim’s shoulders, one hand stroking the short fuzz at the nape of his neck.

“Fuck, Rhodey,” Tony says, right in his ear, “you feel so good.”

“You too,” Jim says.

Talking during sex feels weird for him, always has, but he tries to at least answer Tony. He turns his head and captures Tony’s mouth in a hard kiss—a little sloppy and clumsy because Tony’s already a little uncoordinated, eyes a little unfocussed—and finally starts thrusting his hips. Long, slow thrusts to start with, leaning up more and bracing himself with his hands either side of Tony’s head on the pillow. Tony’s hands roam Jim’s chest and back, mapping his pectoral muscles, palming his nipples and tracing the bottom of his ribcage with dancing fingers that should tickle but just add to the pleasure. He matches Jim’s rhythm with his hips, rocking up to meet each thrust, and clenching down every time Jim withdraws. Tony’s ass, already slick with lube, grows even slicker with Jim’s precome as Jim gradually speeds up his thrusts. He knows Tony’s every tell, the way his eyelids start to flutter and his mouth grows slack, bottom lip pouting out, as he get closer to the edge. Jim shortens his thrusts, speeding up until Tony’s making that little gasp-whine he does when things feel almost too good. He can feel his orgasm building—the tension in the base of his spine, the way his balls feel full and heavy and tight—and he leans forward to kiss Tony again. It takes Tony half a moment to respond, and he blinks up at Jim before he smiles into the kiss, then slides his tongue along Jim’s bottom lip. His hand, the one that had been stroking the back of Jim’s neck, worms in between their bodies and Jim can feel Tony’s knuckles pressing against his belly as Tony takes himself in hand.

Jim can hear his own breathing, harsh in his ears over the sounds Tony’s making. He bites his bottom lip and tries to hold off his climax, barely able to concentrate with the way his balls are aching with the need to release. Beneath him, Tony jerks and gasps, and clenches down hard around Jim’s cock. He feels the spasm of muscles around him, the burst of warm stickiness between their bellies, and lets go of his control. An orgasm like lightning rips through him, curling his toes, and he has a moment where he feels everything and nothing all at once. He comes back to himself with his forehead pressed to Tony’s shoulder, and Tony’s free hand stroking little circles onto the back of his neck.

“I love you,” Rhodey mutters into Tony’s sweat-slick skin.

“Mm,” Tony replies, still finding his words. “Love you too, honey bear.”

Jim lies there for a moment, basking in the afterglow. He can feel Tony breathing under him, hear his heartbeat in his ear, and he feels sweaty and a little sore, sticky and just so perfectly alive, clinging to absolute proof that Tony is also alive and whole. Then he eases free and rolls to the side. They should shower again, clean off the sweat of sex and the sticky mess of come smeared on both their bellies, but Jim doesn’t trust his legs just yet. He rolls to the edge of the bed and grabs one of the abandoned towels off the floor, and cleans himself up with one corner. Tony grabs the other corner and does the same, and then rolls towards Jim, spooning up behind him. His goatee prickles at Jim’s shoulder, a counterpoint to the soft press of his lips.

“Not going to get under the covers?” Jim asks. He doesn’t really care, he can feel sleep creeping up on him anyway.

“Nah, I’ll just turn the heat up. J, make it warm enough to sleep.”

* * *

Jim wakes alone and warm, the comforter pulled up to his chin. He blearily tries to remember if he woke up and wriggled under the covers at some point in the night, until he blinks the last of the sleep from his eyes and realises that Tony must have just pulled the excess covers over him when he left. He takes a moment to stretch, checking his body for sore points—bruises and strains, nothing that time and a trip to the physiotherapist won’t fix—before he wanders out into the kitchen of the little apartment. The kitchen is filled with the smell of coffee, and Tony’s standing next to the sink, completely naked and talking in a low voice. Jim pads up behind him, not sneaking exactly, but Tony still jumps a little when Jim presses a kiss to the back of his neck.

“Thank you, Natasha,” Tony says, and Jim realises he must be in a call, not just talking to JARVIS. “I’ll be there.”

“I wonder if you’d mind taking Doctor Banner to the airport afterwards?” Natasha’s voice asks. “SHIELD has organised his tickets, but it will give you a chance to try and change his mind. Or at least convince him to come back soon.”

Jim tunes the rest of the conversation out. He strokes Tony’s back, thumb following his spine, down until his hand is cupping one of Tony’s delightfully round ass cheeks. There's nothing he enjoys more than mornings like this, when they can wander around with no care for clothing, free to be as demonstrative as they like. He give's Tony's ass a familiar squeeze, and then leaves off teasing him in favour of the almost full carafe of coffee sitting on the bench. He’s careful to be quiet while searching for a spare mug—Ms Romanoff might already have her suspicions about the two of them from her time posing as Tony’s assistant, but he doesn’t need to confirm them. He pours a mug and wanders back into the bedroom to look out the window over the destruction of the city. The morning sun is warm on his toes, and he can see the damage to the building across the road where one of those flying leviathans took out three floors of windows.

“That was Natasha,” Tony says unnecessarily, probably as much to announce his presence in the room as anything. “Everyone’s gathering in an hour to see Thor off. He’s taking Loki and the Tessaract back to Asgard.”

“So he just gets away with it?” Jim asks. It looks like some of the battle zones he’s seen in person over the years, but worse, because Manhattan is home in a way those other places never will be. He can just see his reflection overlaying the damage, and Tony’s paler reflection beside his.

“Apparently whatever punishment they’ve got cooked up for him there will be better than anything us mere mortals can come up with.” Tony makes a face. “Thor’s given his word, or something, and Fury seems inclined to take it.”

“Fury’s probably avoiding an intergalactic incident,” Jim says. He laughs. “When did this become real life? Alien invasions and thunder gods?”

“Don’t look at me, I only fly around in a tin can.” Tony bumps his shoulder gently. “Do you want to come along?”

“No, I should probably report in. I’m possibly technically AWOL, although Command knows where I am.” Jim sighs, and drains the last of his coffee. “I wish I could stay longer.”

“Me too,” Tony says. He’s quiet for a long moment, and too still, and when Jim looks he can see that Tony’s looking at something other than the destroyed city outside. His eyes look hollow and old.

“Hey,” Jim says gently. “Are you going to be okay?”

“What? Yeah, fine.” Tony says. He seems to shake himself back to the present. “I’m going to see what I can do about helping the repair process, maybe channel some funds through the Maria Stark foundation to get things started. See if I can convince Bruce to stay in the country—Natasha said he’s bolting back to Calcutta—or if any of the others need anything. I think SHIELD’s got it all pretty covered, though, so if I’m not needed I’m going to head back to Malibu for a while.”

Jim can see that something’s wrong. There was a kind of bleakness to Tony’s eyes for a moment there, a stare Jim’s all to familiar with seeing on the faces of exhausted airmen. But he knows Tony needs to be ready to talk about it, too, and immediately before he needs to make a public appearance is definitely not the best time.

“I’ll see if they can spare me for a few more days,” he says, thinking aloud. “Then I can fly back with you. I need you to take a look at the War Machine anyway. It took a pounding.”

“Yeah, okay,” Tony says. He turns his face away from the view of the city, and rests his head on Jim’s shoulder. “I should get ready to go.”

“Mm,” Jim agrees. “I should make some calls.”

He gets JARVIS to dial the numbers he needs and pours himself a second cup of coffee while he reports to the Command and gets clearance to stay in Manhattan for a while. Tony reappears when he finishes the call, clean and dressed in a pale suit, carrying a pile of clothes.

“Here, I got some of your things from upstairs,” he says. He kisses Jim quickly. “I have to go.”

“Stay safe." The usual good bye is automatic, but feels so much more necessary after everything that happened yesterday.

Tony kisses him again, soft and sweet. “I will. I promise.”


End file.
